In joint work with R. Abramovitz, we enrich the typology of modal expressions with the attitude verb iv- from Koryak (Chukotko-Kamchatkan), which shows a wide range of flavors (doxastic, bouletic, assertive, directive) and is the first documented variable-force attitude verb. Variation in both domains goes against the proposed universal that modal items can't vary in both force and flavour (Nauze 2008). We use the existential-universal doxastic-assertive variation to argue against this generalization. (For the bouletic flavour, we show that it is derived with the help of the material in the embedded clause; we propose a new technical way of composing the bouletic flavour at LF.)

Slovenian has a (typologically uncommon) existential doxastic verb dopuščati (‘to allow for the possibility that’), which I use to investigate the properties of epistemic modals. I show that dopuščati typically cannot embed a universal epistemic force (morati ‘must’, ne moči ‘cannot’), which I use to give a new account of epistemic modals and doxastic attitudes.

Utterances of sentences such as I promise to come can in the right circumstances bring about the act named by the main verb, a promise in this case. They are called explicit performative utterances, and in English they typically appear with the simple present tense (perfective aspect) and not with the progressive (?I’m promising to come), a subtype of the imperfective aspect. In Slovenian, obljubiti (promise) can be used in the perfective or the imperfective aspect to bring about the act of promising. The Slovenian imperfective is similar to the English progressive in that it can present events in progress (it does not entail the event’s completion). Why is it enough in Slovenian (but not in English) to be in the process of promising to also promise?

I answer this question by taking the relevant distinction between the Slovenian imperfective and the English progressive to be in that the former denotes a possibly incomplete event and the latter denotes a necessarily incomplete one. This distinction is incorporated in a self-referential account: performative verbs are essentially anaphoric expressions (like pronouns, for example) that can successfully bind to an accessible communicative event, such as the actual utterance event. The thesis also includes an empirical investigation of Slovenian performativity.